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Niijoni
Back to Cultures *Government: The seal men live in tightly packed family units, often led by a chieftain or chieftess who rules over multiple families spaced out over many miles. *Caste or Class: No real structure for this exists apart from the chieftains and their supporters. *Slavery: Non existent in any form, likely shunned. *Languages: Multiple regional languages exist most of which have multiple words for snow, food, heat and animals hunted for food *Education and Writing: Non existent, little education beyond children learning to hunt, sew or create vital equipment. *Narcotics, Crime and Punishment: Commiting a crime is essentialy a death sentence as betraying your family unit will only result in them abandoning you to the elements. *Currency: The seal men operate entirely on the barter system and see no value in gold, silver or coin of any form. *Food: Pretty much all of the food eaten by the seal men comes from the sea; the harsh polar climates prevent agriculture in any form and few land animals exist in any number high enough to support a land hunting industry. Both seal and whale are fairly common as when the animals come up for air the seal men rush them and kill them with their clubs (in the case of seals) or spears (in the case of wales). Fishing is also fairly common. When the seal men successfully bring down a whale the meat is often traded to neighbouring families for different meats so as to give them a variety of meat to eat. *Alcohal: No real alcohol or any means to produce it exists in the polar regions of the world *Warfare: Non existent, in order for survival the families need to co operate and their few numbers allow for families to live incredibly far apart preventing territorial issues from arising. *Armor & Weapons: Armour is largely replaced with heavy seal furs, with little warfare the dominant goal is to ensure warmth over protection. Both the seal club and the spear are fairly common weapons, a specific variant of seal club is used by the seal men of northern Chlorine is sharpened at the end so as to be more effective at killing and then cutting up seals. Some of the more southern seal men have begun to embrace foreign tools, using knives and bows as weaponry, but they lack the material or technology to produce their own and must trade their furs for these weapons. *Clothing: Furs are the only type of material used as clothing, anything else lacks the warmth to be affective. Furs are worn almost always, only being taken of to be replaced by newer furs or to replace wet ones. Both cloth and leather lack the warmth fur offers and the only other material even considered by the seal men for clothing is wool, which they trade the Tengardi for in exchange for whale or seal meat. *Hair: Universally grown freely amongst adults, children's hair is often cut to be short amongst boys and left to grow freely amongst girls; black hair is the most common, but brown is still present. *Gender & Sexuality: Men and women are largely considered equal amongst the seal men. Men are considered to responsible for hunting and women for maintaining the small snow huts they call home; but either gender can reverse roles and in some families where many of the men have died women make up the majority of both the hunters and the home keepers. Homosexuality and Bisexuality is really not something that occurs often enough if at all amongst the seal men, the arranged marriage system between families and the close family units that exist really eliminate any chance of either. *Architecture & Design: With snow and ice as the only readily available material most of the seal men's homes are built out of the two. cut from the snow bricks are placed together to form igloos which trap the heat within and keep the interior warm when a blizzard rages just feet away. Wood is a rarity and is always reserved for fire use, in its place bone is used for tools and boats.